Is it just me or has the whole world gone crazy for eyelash extensions and coloring? I’m hearing about this stuff all over the place and it’s not cheap. I don’t get it; eyelashes are just a thin line of hair. Yes, they might emphasize the eye but I can think of a dozen things people will notice on your face before they bother to see your eyelashes. Of course, if you are blonde I can see the heavy emphasis on mascara and maybe eyelash coloring (gotta love being a brunette for that reason alone).  But I know many people who are really obsessed with mascara but barely pay their eyebrows any attention at all.

Eyebrows are the picture frame around your eyes but they rarely get much attention.  Maybe a couple of minutes with the tweezers once in a while.  Nicely arched eyebrows can really open up your face and just perk things up. If your eyebrows are unruly and sloppy, it’s time to change that. And unlike most things on Makeup Monday, this will be free. Unless you don’t have any tweezers. (Everyone has tweezers, right?) I’m not going to get into the hows and whys of the proper way to pluck and shape your eyebrows. What I’m more interested in is day-to-day maintenence. I have my brows waxed because I tend to get a little carried away with the tweezing. My eyebrow hair is sparse and things can go bad quickly. Let’s just say that I’ve ended up more than once with eyebrows that were about an inch inch long. Imagine Hitler’s mustache but above my eye. Not terribly attractive. So I leave it to the professionals.

Once your eyebrows are nicely shaped you need to make sure to groom them. Say what? Listen; eyebrow hair is usually droopy. (If you look at an old man you can really see what I mean). Even if your brows are freshly tweezed, the hair will still hang downwards or straight across. What we want to do is to brush it upwards.  It opens up your entire face. This will do wonders for you, I swear. Especially if you are oldish like me.

Right now I want you to feel your eyebrows. Try to smooth the hair up and over. Having your eyebrows brushed upwards might look a little odd to you at first. Anytime you change something on your face it will take some getting used to. But if you look at any close-up photo in a magazine, the woman will always have her brows brushed upwards.  Some people (especially older male people) have really long eyebrow hair. It might need a trim. I have to constantly get on Mister’s case to trim his eyebrow hair. If your man needs his eyebrows trimmed but seems resistant, just tell him that’s all you can think about when you have sex. That should do the trick.

Now how to get your brows to stay nicely groomed? You don’t want to be constantly stroking your eyebrow hair into place. That’s a little creepy. And gross.  The cheapest solution is to get an old toothbrush and spray it with hairspray. Quickly brush it onto your brows, smoothing them in place as you go. They’ll stay nice-looking all day.

There are also brow gels available. These look a little bit like mascaras and are usually found right next to mascara in the stores. Yet again, cosmetic companies treat eyelashes like they are a much bigger deal and there are a million products for them. Poor eyebrow products are just a little footnote on the bottom row.

One product I like is by Sonia Kashuk (that means my favorite store–Target!). It’s a clear gel that goes on nicely with a wand. It keeps the hair in place without making it crusty like hairspray does. If you have thick dark brows this should be all you need. It only costs about $6.00.As I mentioned before, my eyebrow hair isn’t very thick so I use Revlon’s Brow Fantasy most of the time. I also suggest this for very fair-haired people who need a little color in their brows. It has an eyebrow pencil on one end and matching colored gel on the other and costs about $7.00.  I have dark brown hair and use the color “dark brown”. It’s not as dark as my hair which is good. You want brow pencil to be a shade lighter than your hair, otherwise it will look really fake; like you’ve got two black caterpillars crawling across your forehead.

Use a light hand with the brow pencil. There was a lady I knew growing up who used to paint on her eyebrows. I remember being completely perplexed by them. We don’t want your eyebrows to look painted on. Just smudge the brow liner on in any sparse spots.

Once you’ve used the brow pencil, then swipe the gel in an upwards motion. Once it dries it will last all day.

This is a pretty long blog post to tell you about something that takes less than a minute to do. Taking care of your eyebrows really does make a big difference.